Response to Yakuza article

This story was a really interesting read, and covered something that I was actually quite curious about: how do the police in Japan go about handling the Yakuza and other organized crime in Japan? Surprisingly for me, this article seemed to imply that, at least until relatively recently, they didn't. Previous to the ordinances put up in 2011, it was pretty difficult for the police to hold gang members and especially leaders accountable for their crimes. However, with the new legislation any gang members (and former gang members) are now in a really tough position. It's getting easier and easier to arrest gang members, and perhaps also more and more difficult for those gang members to be rehabilitated.

The importance of this story comes from the effects that these changes have on the population of Japan as a whole. With more and more gang members being arrested, it seems that there is finally a chance for Japan to become free of organized crime. The Yakuza have felt unthreatened enough to have offices out in the open without fear of being prosecuted for a long time, according to other articles that I read in light of this article. Violence between gangs was also largely overlooked, which is where most gang violence actually occurs (even though it tends to affect the general public surrounding the offenses too). With some focus being shifted to these instances, there is a lot more opportunity for gang members to be arrested. On the other hand, the reforms made are very focused on getting criminals behind bars rather than rehabilitating them and turning them into productive and harmless members of society again. With it being so difficult for former gang members to get a job after being convicted, it seems like the increase in arrests could at some point result in a mass of people who might not feel they have any options outside of returning to a life of crime independent of the Yakuza. There is also a perhaps another unexpected way that the reduction of organized crime may not necessarily imply a reduction in all crime. Similarly to the way that drug cartels in Mexico monitor and protect their territories from other gangs and some level of petty crime not approved by their organization, the Yakuza has a history of lowering the crime that goes on in their areas. It's difficult to predict what will happen in the absence of that protection, even though this is definitely not to say that the Yakuza should remain unchecked and allowed to continue getting away with committing crimes.

I think something that struck me while reading this article in terms of the greater context comes back to a comparison between the Yakuza and the drug cartels in Mexico. I think that the organizations work and maintain their existence in similar ways, by providing some levels of protection to their areas of influence, in some cases providing assistance to their community in order to generate some level of support or necessity for their existence among the general public, and sometimes taking advantage of corruption in the political or justice system. However, I think that the Yakuza doesn't have quite as strong of a hold in many of these areas, and have mainly been relying on authorities' unwillingness or inability to touch them for so long. As such, now that they're under direct fire from the police and the ordinances that are now being taken advantage of, their hold is slipping and it's becoming more difficult for them to exist. I wonder if this will result in them becoming more violent in their desperation (the way that many cartels ensure that the authorities do not have the will to oppose them), or simply fizzling out of existence. From an outsider's perspective, the Yakuza does not strike me as being quite as overtly violent as the cartels, preferring to keep up a good public image, which makes me think that maybe the police's efforts will be more successful.